Description

Souvenir relic wood gavel produced by the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) Railroad, made of wood taken from the clock tower of Baltimore’s Camden Station, erected in 1856 and dismantled in 1951-52.

Camden Station, in Baltimore, Maryland, was the main terminal of the B&O Railroad, the nation’s first commercial railroad. The station opened in 1856 and was completed around 1867. Its most notable architectural feature was the 185-foot clock tower that made it Baltimore’s tallest building. The tower, however, proved to be structurally unsound and was soon drastically shortened. In 1952, what remained of the tower was entirely removed (providing the source of wood for the gavel). In 1971, the B&O vacated the terminal building, using a railcar office on the site instead. The station exterior was renovated in 1992 as part of the complex of the Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the stadium where baseball’s Baltimore Orioles now play. As part of that renovation, a replica of the original tower was placed where the original had stood, to return the station to its 1867 appearance. In 2005, the building reopened as a sports history museum.

Camden Station figures in Civil War history in the Baltimore Massacre, which took place on April 19, 1861, when a mob attacked Union soldiers marching to the station, causing the first bloodshed of the Civil War.